


Or just another lost angel?

by rosa_himmelblau



Series: The Roadhouse Blues [14]
Category: Wiseguy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:28:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26013385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_himmelblau/pseuds/rosa_himmelblau
Summary: Roger's continuing search for the missing Vince.
Series: The Roadhouse Blues [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1069713
Kudos: 2





	Or just another lost angel?

"The Lord's work," Jerry Martonni assured Roger. "It's the Lord's work you're doing." 

"I don't—I can't—we can't thank you enough," Sally Martonni stammered through tears of what Roger assumed was joy. 

Then, mercifully, the doctor came out of their son's room and Roger was able to escape the grateful parents, the hospital, the whole soggy deal. 

"The Lord's work," he muttered once he was safely back in his rental, heading to his hotel. "The Lord needs to start pulling his weight in this partnership, because so far I'm the only one who's been doing any work at all." 

Tommy Martonni was not the first good American son Roger had returned to grateful family. The first, Grant Holldecker, he'd found on his first foray to find Vince. A phone call from a man disguising his voice had led to an exchange in a dark alley. The captive wasn't Vince, but as the captor explained in laughably broken English, he only wanted two hundred dollars for him. 

Roger was annoyed enough that he almost told the guy to take a hike. Then he thought of what he'd tell Vince, that he'd let some poor bastard die when he could have saved him for a measly two C's. So, he'd paid the money and flown him home and handed him off to a wife and father who both cried. Roger didn't even find out why La Mano Blanco had him in the first place. What the fuck did he care anyway? He was more curious about why the salesman had disguised his voice but had been fine with letting Roger see his face. 

Then it happened again. That lost lamb cost a grand, but his mother, father, and three sisters had all hugged Roger and cried, so it seemed like a good return on his investment. This time they told him what their lamb had been doing in Central America, but the sisters had all talked at once so Roger never got the sense of it. Good, he was doing good, that was about all he was sure of, that and he wasn't a priest. What other Anglos were they collecting down there? Do-gooders, it seemed, with or without collars. 

They talked to him, the rescuees and their families, whether he wanted them to or not. Mostly it was not. They told him their stories, and while Roger didn't listen to them, he did hear them—the way a stone hears the water dripping down on it. 

In his search for Vince, he found reporters, charity workers, lawyers, outside agitators—eighteen to date. Roger had to admit, he was proud of his efficiency, even if he wasn't accomplishing his ultimate goal—even though after the third one he'd become pretty sure his name was on a list. Need cash? Got an Anglo who's near death? Or that you just don't know what to do with? Call 1-800-SUCKER. Saving these guys was beginning to feel as mundane as having pizza for dinner when you really had a taste for Chinese. 

Maybe that metaphor was backwards. 

But the feeling was accurate: disappointment, but so ordinary, so expected, it almost didn't feel like anything. Tomorrow he'd get his pizza. 

Roger carried his duffle to his room at the interchangeable chain hotel. Most of the time he liked being invisible most of the time. Invisibility was power. When people didn't notice you, it gave you more opportunities to watch them. He hadn't been so aware of this before his stint as Mel Profitt's hired gun, when he, personally, wasn't noticed much. But when you travelled with a freak show, you were in the spotlight even if you weren't the focus of it. 

Roger could probably never have convinced Mel—or Susie—that quietly driving up to a HoJo in a station wagon and checking in with a couple of battered Samsonites would have been infinitely safer than 'coptering to the George V like Mick Jagger and Barbra Streisand, but even if he could have, and even if Mel had tried, it wouldn't have mattered. 

Neither his highs nor his lows could be easily hidden. The highs brought a constant stream of exuberant rambling, closely followed by a sharp paranoia he simply could not keep to himself. People noticed Mel and they tended to remember him. 

In their own way, the lows were even worse. It was fine if they were on the yacht, or already ensconced in their luxury digs. But Roger had once had the experience of getting a fully depressed Mel checked into the Four Seasons in Chicago. Mel was nearly comatose and was delivered to his room on a gurney. A private gurney, that Susan had had tricked out for him with silk sheets. (Roger tried it out once, and except for being a little short for him, it was more comfortable than half the beds he'd slept in.) Wheeling Mel through the lobby hadn't made Roger feel like a body guard, or even a paramedic; it had made him feel like one of King Tut's attendants. 

Now, in retrospect, quietly cleaning his guns in his room at a Holiday Inn, it was kind of funny. Poor Mel and his delusions of grandeur. There was a reason his arrivals looked like the circus coming to town. At least his problems were behind him. 

Vinnie's—and by extension, Roger's—were ongoing, which was why Roger was spending a night in a Holiday Inn in Salt Lake City before flying himself to Usulutan. The drive to and from Tommy Martonni's home in Bear River City had been neither long nor difficult, but Roger had never been in a plane crash, and this wasn't the time he wanted to change that. Even if he didn't sleep, he definitely needed a place to light, to rest, to stretch and relax and regroup. 

The lead he was following this time didn't seem any more promising than the others, but he couldn't afford to pass up any lead where Vince was concerned, and it wasn't as though he had any others at the moment. Vince was going to be found, and while Roger's faith in Frank's ability and determination in this was absolute, his only resource was a federal government that might or might not be on his side. He was like a very determined man trying to dig a tunnel with a plastic spoon. 

Aiuppo's resources might be better—or more cooperative, anyway—but the path Roger was following was an entirely different one, and in this race, it didn't matter who got there first. 

No, it wasn’t a race. It was a treasure hunt, and they all had different maps, none of them with X’s marking the spot. 

There'd been another message from Frank on his answering machine that morning. At least this one could be understood without listening to it over, and over, and over yet again. Either Frank was running down or somebody was slipping Valium in his oatmeal. Roger knew how Frank had gotten his private number—well, it was his only number, but it was really, really private. He'd combed through Vince's phone records. He'd call him back when he got around to it. 

Roger see-sawed between wanting to like Frank more than he did and wishing he could completely devote himself to disliking him. He respected Frank, but most of Frank's virtues were of the pain in the ass variety, which made him hard for Roger to warm up to him. It was easier to respect him—from a distance—and laugh at him behind his back. And feel a little bad doing so. But how could you not? Frank was not to be trifled with, but he was still pretty funny. 

His suitcase was packed. Both his guns were clean, oiled, ready to go. All they needed was loading. He checked the .357's magazine, made sure it was full, and popped it back in. 

The .45's clip was missing a bullet. Roger thought about that; he didn't remember firing the gun. Who the hell would he have shot? 

Then he remembered the rabbit. He'd been stopped on a two-lane road, out of his car to stretch and look at the endless, featureless sky, and there in the field he was parked next to was a rabbit. Roger hadn't shot a rabbit since he was a kid. Before he pulled the trigger, it seemed like fun. After, it was just a dead rabbit he had no use for. He left it in the field for some other animal to feast on and made a mental note to save his bullets for something that could shoot back. 

This replacement bullet was uncooperative; it slipped from Roger's hand and rolled under the bed. It was when he crawled under to retrieve it that Roger found the mouse. 

First, he thought it was a either an enormous dust bunny or real mouse, a dead one, since a real live one wouldn't just lie there while Roger poked around in its hiding place. Dust bunnies he didn't care about, but dead things stank if you didn't dispose of them properly, so Roger grabbed it and brought it out with him, to flush it down the toilet. 

But it didn't feel like a real mouse, and when he was standing up and looking at it, he could see it wasn't. The tail was made of dirty white suede. The ears were made of dirty pink suede. It looked like some cat's discarded toy. 

Instead of flushing it down the toilet, Roger dropped it in the wastebasket, then washed his hands and went back to the .45. 

Once both guns were fully loaded, Roger stowed them away and put on his shoes and jacket. The drive ahead of him wasn't all that long, but the wait after might be; the man he was meeting was more skittery and nervous than the rabbit. To deal with him—to have the patience to gentle him down to where he could talk instead of stutter, Roger needed to be at his best, and that meant well-fed, well-rested, and relaxed. He needed to go for a walk before he hit the road. He already had reservations at the next hotel; all he needed was a deck of cards so he could play a few games of solitaire while he smoked some cigarettes and watched Captain Kangaroo. 

He was halfway to the elevator when a thought struck him and he went back to the room and fished the toy mouse out of the trash. "You're not a cat toy," he said to the toy mouse. "Cat toys don't wear little tiny little glasses on their tiny little noses." 

A maid passing by his open door saw Roger and gave him a funny look; Roger, feeling contrary, smiled at her and said, "I was just talking to my little friend here," and held up the dusty mouse by its white suede tail. 

She smiled nervously and hurried past him. Roger laughed, even though he knew talking to yourself—or to your little stuffed mouse—in public was not how you stayed invisible. He dropped the mouse back in the wastebasket and went outside. 

He followed the little paths around the hotel, stopping to look at the big eagle statue in front both times he passed it. It was a cool day, a nice day for a brisk walk in the sun, but once he was done with that, there wasn't anything to do outdoors, so Roger went back inside. There were vending machines in a small alcove just off the lobby, and Roger bought himself that deck of cards, along with two caffeine-free Cokes. The last thing he needed was caffeine. 

Upstairs again, he pulled his packed suitcases from the closet and checked their locks. There was no point lying down for a nap; he wasn't going to be able to sleep and it would only stress him out to try. Time to get gone. 

As he opened the door, Roger stopped and took the little mouse out of the wastebasket again. Something was nagging at him. 

The mouse was either a toy or a Christmas ornament, that much was obvious by its anthropomorphic stance: it was standing upright like a human being. And there was a patch of dried glue on its back where a hanger had been attached, or maybe a pair of wings. Or maybe both. Maybe it was a mouse angel who had let George Bailey Rodent drown and lost his halo and wings. 

None of those things were nagging at Roger though, and what was was obvious the minute he looked at the mouse again. Roger laughed, brushing off some of the dust. What amused Roger about the mouse was that he looked familiar. Roger lifted the glasses—the ear pieces were poked into the mouse's head, so they didn't come off—and let them fall back. 

The glasses had a lot to do with the resemblance, but mostly it was the expression of perpetual irritation that made the little mouse look just like Frank. Well, that and the little pink nose. He looked like he wanted to growl at Roger. 

"No wonder you lost your wings," Roger said. "Georgie Terranova didn't jump off the bridge, he got dragged off, and where were you? That's a de-winging offense for sure." 

The mouse just scowled at him. He certainly didn't have an angelic expression. 

Roger nearly dropped the mouse back in the trash a third time. Instead he brushed off some more of the dust. He wanted to have this with him, when he found Vince, since he was sure Vince would see the resemblance too, and he'd be in need of a good laugh. 

And maybe Roger would call Frank back, once he'd finished this latest exchange. Who could tell, maybe he'd even have some good news for him.


End file.
